Great Limerick Run 2023 (30th Apr)

The Great Limerick Run on Sunday morning 30th April included a choice of race distances. Joan Flynn ran the Marathon, which started near the city centre and took the runners east towards the Castletroy area before doubling back to the city centre and heading south to the Raheen area, completing a big loop and returning to the city centre again where they crossed over Sarsfield Bridge to the west side of the Shannon. After two loops on the west side, they returned to Sarsfield Bridge again, crossed the Shannon once more and finished on O’Connell Street. While there lots of long straight stretches, the course also had lots of twists and turns, so everyone had to keep on their toes and carefully follow the instructions of the stewards. Joan negotiated the tricky course, enduring very warm conditions in the second half, to finish second woman in an excellent 3 hours 3 minutes 22 seconds. Running the Half Marathon, Paul Byrne only had to cover the Raheen area and the over and back Sarsfield Bridge twice elements of the marathon course, still a tricky enough undertaking and he too had to be careful, but he negotiated it without incident to finish in 1 hour 35 minutes 16 seconds, and this will give him great confidence that with further training a sub-3 hour marathon can’t be too far off.